


Four Times

by GalekhXigisi



Series: Menstrual fics [6]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Aftermath, Blood, Deadlights (IT), Depressed Richie Tozier, Depressed Stanley Uris, Depression, F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Menstruation, Mental Breakdown, Multi, Pennywise (IT) Being an Asshole, Pennywise (IT) is His Own Warning, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sobbing, Suicide Attempt, Trans Richie Tozier, Unused It Script, mentioned Unholy Holy Trio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:07:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21762703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalekhXigisi/pseuds/GalekhXigisi
Summary: Richie's left alone and then he talks to the losers about Pennywise.
Relationships: Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon/Ben Hanscom/Eddie Kaspbrak/Beverly Marsh/Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris
Series: Menstrual fics [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1559251
Comments: 9
Kudos: 131





	Four Times

The scream erupts from his throat without much of a warning. The only warning anyone gets is the way his jaw clenches. However, no one could hear or see him, not with the thick curtains that black out the home and radio that blasted music. He just  _ screams, _ anger undeniable as he stands alone in his home. It’s not abnormal for him to be alone since it’s just him and his parents, but that wasn’t the fucking  _ point. _ The fucking point was that everything was  _ shit. _

“You fucking  _ left me,” _ he screams at nothing, angry tears welling up in his eyes. His hands grip at nothing, flexing until his already pale knuckles are as white as paper. 

He wanted to scream it at his friends, actually. They had fucking left him to clean Beverly’s bathroom. Why had they been so pissed that he was upset about her suddenly joining the losers club? He was one of the original losers, the original  _ “girl” _ of the group, the one who always took their punches with little reaction. He was the seer of the group and always found himself deflecting their angry jabs like they were nothing. They always fucking stung. The losers were his fucking family, after all, and their opinions meant  _ everything _ to Richie. 

They had been so angry when he insulted the redhead girl. They had yelled at him, had fussed. He wonders if it’s because he’s a girl that made her accepted so easily, already sexualized by the group of boys despite half of the group not even liking girls, to begin with. Richie hated seeing her bare body, reminded of his own looks, his own pale skin in the mirror and too-wide hips that his mother always complimented before cupping his chest and saying  _ My little girl’s growing up so fast! _ He had been angry with her, angry that she was so easily accepted into the group, angry that they would instantly push Richie to the side so that they could clean her bloodied up bathroom, angry that he never got to tell them about when he saw Pennywise but her own experience was put on a pedestal. 

He screams again, loud and painful. He’s fucking  _ outraged. _ He’s cleaned his room, moved it around seven different fucking ways, and yet he still isn’t fucking happy. Every single sensation is overwhelming. 

Richie lets loose a howling sob. His own bathroom had gotten soaked in blood, too, but he couldn’t do  _ shit _ about it. He didn’t have Bill, Ben, Mike, Beverly, Eddie, or Stan. it was just Richard fucking Tozier, cleaning out a bathroom in the lonely house at the end of the dead-end street with his only neighbors being two old ladies that had little to no hearing. Even if he didn’t have music playing, the women couldn’t hear him now. He still can feel the ghost of Bill’s knuckles against his jaw and the anger that had boiled in him so harshly that he had fucking sobbed the instant he got the chance. He didn’t tell them about his bathroom. He wasn’t going to. 

A broken shriek leaves the traumatized boy as he punches the wall, meeting an already broken surface from his mother throwing a wine glass at it days before. He tried not to think about her or about Pennywise as much as he could, but now was so especially rough that he didn’t  _ care. _ It was that time of the month and his entire body felt like it was going through a meat grinder. His emotions were overwhelming and it was taking every single fiber of his being not to scratch his wrists until he couldn’t anymore. He’d been clean since just days before their fight with Pennywise, he didn’t want to break that. 

_ “Fuck you,” _ he hollers at the wall, breaking down as he walks to the bathroom. Within an instant, he’s leaning over the sink, tears falling into the sink as he screams at white porcelain. He’s furious and it makes him sad. He  _ hates _ being angry. Getting angry just leads to sadness that invades his entire mind and shuts down everything. “You all  _ lef me! _ I was fucking  _ alone!” _ He screams it at the mirror. No one would hear and no one would care, either. 

He stands and cries for hours, unable to break the sobs. They never dwindle, even as he chokes to the mirror, “I almost  _ k - killed myself.” _ He had scars to prove it. They stared back at him every single day. 

-

  
The topic doesn’t come up for a while, not until Richie is sitting in the hammock, Eddie and Stan both in there, too. It’s a miracle that it was supporting all of them, but Stan had been in the hammock first, to which Richie had just climbed on top of him, Eddie following minutes later. Ben had brought it up, had asked when they first saw  _ It _ and what he had done. Richie had frozen up as the others told their stories, talking about in-betweens and everything else that came across their minds. They were laughing. They were making jokes about it. 

“How about you, Rich,” Beverly suddenly asks. 

Richie’s chest feels tight as he gets asked, immediately smiling and saying, “I didn’t see it until the Neibolt when I got separated from Bill.” 

“B - Bullshit,” Bill accuses with a laugh. 

He wishes they could tell how he had stiffened. He wishes that they just already knew, but he can’t just say anything about it before now. It feels like picking a scab open, forcefully prying a newly healed wound apart, springing on infections as he laughs and says, “you got me.” He puts the comic book he had been focused on down and says, “So, it was while I was boning Misses K-” 

“Beep beep, Richie,” comes the chorus. 

And Richie snaps his mouth shut with a smile, opening the comic book back up like he hadn’t been asked a question. The others won’t let it go, though, because Eddie, Bill, and Beverly are still prying and want to know how many times he saw  _ It _ before the big battle and what actually happened. For some reason, it makes Richie bristle. “You weren’t asking me about this when it happened,” he says in a casual tone, “so why does it matter now?” 

Beverly smiles and shrugs, “because it just does now. We can kind of laugh about it, I guess!” 

Richie scoffs, though. “Yeah, Bev,  _ laugh _ about a traumatic experience that killed multiple people and hurt a lot of others.” 

  
The redhead puts her hands up, eyes widening in surprise at the sudden bitterness. “Whoa, Rich! I just wanted to know!” 

Richie tenses for a moment, anger draining as he sighs, defeated. His expression turns somber. The boy looks like he’s aged ten years within two seconds. Slowly, he places the comic book down and focuses on his hands. “I saw him four times, I think,” he says, “i’ve just blocked a lot of it out since the first time.” 

_ “Four,” _ Bill repeats. 

Richie nods, softly repeating, “Four. Yeah, a few weeks before school let out, I saw him… After Bowers called me a - a  _ faggot, _ I went to that Paul Bunyan statue just to get the fuck away… It came to life and he floated down with his ballons, even sung a song and a bunch of other shit, talked about playing truth or dare.” He smiles, his expression far too sad as he holds his own arms, not yet a hug but already near it.  _ “‘Don’t touch the other boys, Richie,’” _ he repeats the clown’s words,  _ “‘Don’t or they’ll know your dirty little secret.’” _

His eyes water and he sniffles, trying his best to smile. It’s a broken picture as his tears blur the other losers. 

“When we first pulled Beverly into the group, you all said you’d clean her bathroom because it was covered in blood. You all left me alone, telling me to stand guard in case her dad came back.” Richie grins like it doesn’t hurt to admit out loud. “He showed up and hit me with his damn deadlights. I’m surprised he didn’t just take me then, but he  _ didn’t. _ So, when you guys came back out, none of you seemed concerned and I didn’t want to bring it up, either, since you all seemed pretty happy.” 

_ “Richie,” _ Stan weakly whimpers. 

“There was the Neibolt, too,” he continues, ignoring the other’s words as he wipes his face. “Bill and I, w - we got separated when Eddie fell through the floor, I think… I was locked in this room with a bunch of clown puppets and a casket. Th - THe casket, I opened it and it had a little  _ me _ inside of it, I guess. It was a puppet with its mouth sewn shut and maggots crawling across its face.” His nails subconsciously flaw at his cheeks, digging into the skin without actually thinking. Eddie pulls his hand away and Richie doesn’t comment. “There was a missing poster, too, on the inside with the word  _ found _ written in blood.” Richie wipes his face with the back of his arm. “It was different, though, because it was  _ Rosemary.” _

Richie has to pause. The dead name feels like thorns on his tongue, razors scraping the back of his throat. A sob involuntarily leaves him, shaking his body and the hammock with him. 

“S - Sorry,” he apologizes, trying to keep his voice steady. No one interrupts him and he knows it’s his cue to continue. “The poster and puppet were different. They had - a - ad long hair and lipstick and ribbons and a dress-” his hands move to gesture at it, supporting his words. “I ran and Bill pulled me out.” That’s where he finishes that story. It takes him a moment to collect himself. 

Slowly, Richie compiles himself. It takes a few minutes of him wiping his face and the two boys in the hammock helping him, but he gets there enough that he can finally talk. His throat still hurts and the tears are still falling, but he’s no longer sobbing. “I - I saw  _ It _ after our fight, too, Bill.” He smiles again, but it’s soft and broken. It’s somewhat genuine enough that it doesn’t feel as bitter as it had earlier. “It was the same day and… I lost my  _ shit.” _ He can’t deny the genuine sob that leaves him again. 

“You don’t have to keep going, Richie,” Ben says softly. 

Richie shakes his head, “I - I know, but… Gotta get it out one day, right?” 

“Not really,” Beverly whispers.

The raven locked boy ignores her words as he continues, “My bathroom got covered in blood, too… And I was just so  _ fucked _ the entire time.” Richie wipes his face again. “He called me Rosie… Only my mom’s ever called me that… And he just kept  _ calling me it.” _ His hands shake. “It was hard to clean up and I… I almost killed myself, honestly.” 

Stan inhales sharply, a high-pitched noise leaving him. Richie isn’t looking at him, though. He  _ can’t. _

“I got so close to it. I swallowed so many different pills and I was bleeding out in the bathroom, but my brother once saved his boyfriend from suicide and I… I remember reading their letters and how much Boris had changed because he had seen Theo almost fucking  _ dead.” _ Another cry leaves him, but it’s manageable. “I miss my brothers and my dad… Not my biological dad, but  _ Wentworth. _ And you guys left,  _ too… _ I was  _ alone.” _

“You’re not ever going to be alone again,” Mike promises softly. 

Richie hums softly, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. “He taunted me for it,  _ It _ taunted me for it.” He shivers. “I said I was gonna kill him, remember? Do you guys remember what he said?” 

“Not really,” Ben says, the others passing their own versions of it. 

_ “‘Kill me? Kill me,’” _ he repeats perfectly, his impersonation spot on, _ “‘You can’t even kill yourself, Trashmouth.’” _ He scoffs softly, remembering each word perfectly. _ “‘Oops! Was that a secret? So many secrets! I’ll tell you what. I’ll do it for ya if you’re still so inclined!’” _ He takes a shaky breath, perfectly impersonating the clown’s enthusiasm.  _ “‘I’ll do it for ya! Hell! I’ll do it for free!’” _

Finally, Richie breaks, his voice gone as he sobs. He chokes out an admitted, “And I would have  _ let him!” _

Stan’s arms wrap around him, tight and collectively grounding. Richie had been there for a lot of the times Stan had struggled with his own depression and Stan for Richie’s own turmoil. Richie had seen many suicide scares when it came to Stan. Richie, as far as Stan knew up until now, had never gotten that close. But Richie had a million different times before, sometimes just a nap away from slipping into a premature permanent rest. There had been so many shitty times, so many shitty nights where he had been alone for far too long with too many thoughts. 

Richie can feel the wet patch on his shoulder, Stanley’s tears collecting. Normally, Richie would fire a joke off, but now, he couldn’t find it in him to. He felt  _ horrid. _ His arms wrap around the other, his own tears falling as he cries. The others join, their arms wrapping around Richie and kisses pressed to his skin. This wasn’t made better by just one group hug, but it was a step forward into nursing the situation back to health. They couldn’t just will away his depression or trauma with a hug and a couple of kisses. It was going to take a lot of trust and talking and seeking professional help, but it was a step forward, nonetheless. 

**Author's Note:**

> I've been thinking about the fact that Richie was canonly suicide but like...
> 
> Here's my Discord server  
> https://discord.gg/eGkwayy


End file.
